The first monographic presentation devoted to the Indian artist Sayed Haider Raza in France, this new exhibition at the Center Pompidou plunges us into the world of the Progressive Artists Group, an artistic movement founded in Bombay in 1947.
In this news exposition temporary, inaugurated on February 15, the art center pays tribute to one of the major figures of Indian modern art and allows its visitors to discover the painting of the Indian artist in a unique way Sayed Haider Raza (1922-2016). The choice of works focused precisely on the forty years following his arrival in France (1950-1990).
A first monographic exhibition devoted
Like a journey through his landscapes, where the figurative loses ground over time, letting the color go, texturing the canvas. This is the evolution of Raza’s painting over the first three decades presented, later a turn will be taken. That of the form, geometric, which sequences the canvas in the most abstract way possible, bringing it closer to the current developed internationally following the Second World War. But regardless of the figuration, there are sensations that emanate from each painting and allow us to follow the artist through the settings he has gone through, Bombay, Paris, Provence, Rajasthan… The chronology, chosen here to present the hundred works hung, makes it all the more possible to appreciate the stylistic journey of the artist, and to follow his “formal and conceptual development. »
It is a strong chromatic intensity offered by the painting of Sayed Haider Raza who was one of the founding members of the Progressive Artists Group, a movement of artists with a modern project born in independent India in 1947. The creative energy and cross-cultural nature of the collective will draw the contours of a generation of cosmopolitan artists. Three years later Raza moved to Paris where he entered the Beaux-Arts, only to leave once more in 2010 to return to his native land. It was therefore high time to consecrate his posterity in a French museum.
Sayed Haider Raza , Centre Pompidou, Paris. From February 15 to May 15.
